


our bodies, possessed by light

by kaithartic (bluedreaming), tinybitsoflight (bluedreaming)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4672742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/kaithartic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/pseuds/tinybitsoflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You need help," the girl says as she walks down the sidewalk, long strides smooth even over the slippery ice and random snow drifts. "And I need a favour."</p>
            </blockquote>





	our bodies, possessed by light

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [23emotions](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/23emotions) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  ambedo  
> n. a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—which leads to a dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life, a mood whose only known cure is the vuvuzela.
> 
>  **Warnings:** minor character death, descriptions of bodily harm, implied violence occurring before the narrative begins, implied work involving something to do with selling one's body
> 
>  **Thanks:** Thank you so much to everyone keeping me going, and Reeza for helping with the titles.

There's dried blood on his cracked lip, a metallic taste on his tongue as he swallows and tries to straighten his bra strap without making it too obvious, but his ankle is on fire and Baekhyun sags against the brick wall, scraping his already bruised elbow.

"Fuck," he mutters under his breath, trying not to cry. If only he can get to the motel—but he's not even sure if they'll let him in, looking like this, even if he does still have a crumpled twenty stuffed into the lining of his bra. _You didn't find that, shitheads._ Baekhyun grins, face stretching in what probably looks like a ghastly smile in contrast with the blood and tear tracks on his face.

"Hey," a voice says, and looking up, Baekhyun finds himself staring into the eyes of a cute—he blinks, once—girl, leaning over to look at him. "You look like—" her voice cuts off abruptly, it's a nice voice, alto, maybe almost a tenor, but Baekhyun isn't paying much attention to that, frantically searching his brain— _Does she recognize me from S? Is she a new girl?_ He's just taking a deep breath, bracing himself for the pain when he takes off running when the girl rests a hand on his shoulder.

"Ouch," he winces, backing away into the wall, wincing again as his beat up back makes contact with the rough surface through his ripped top.

"Are you okay?" the girl asks, and there's a glint of recognition in her eyes, but not the anger or disgust Baekhyun expects to accompany it.

"What do you want?" he asks, instead of answering, because he's too used to traps and the slippery way they're laid, how easy it is to fall in and then realize you can't get out.

_"Do you want to make easy money? All you need to do is dress up as a girl."_

He's not listening, not anymore, shaking the girl's hand off, he turns to run.

And promptly collapses onto the sidewalk as his ankle completely gives way.

"That's why I was asking," the girl grumbles, wrapping her arms around him as she hefts him up into her arms, waving the friends Baekhyun can't really make out in the corona of neon lights away with a smile. _Wow, she's strong,_ he thinks, before shaking his head and trying to push away.

"What do you want?" Just because the girl doesn't seem to be associated with S doesn't mean she's safe.

"You need help," the girl says, her chest humming next to Baekhyun's as she walks down the sidewalk, long strides smooth even over the slippery ice and random snow drifts. _It must be nice, being tall._ "And I need a favour."

That's it.

Baekhyun shoves as hard as he can, almost managing to topple both of them before the girl manages to regain her balance.

"What do you want?!" Baekhyun hisses, he doesn't want to attract any attention, especially not looking like this, far too close —

"Relax," the girl laughs, Baekhyun can feel the vibration of her chuckle and it makes him mad, "I'm not some kind of nefarious kidnapper. You obviously need help, and I have a job that I think only you can fill." It really doesn't sound any more above board, and Baekhyun says as as much.

"Hear me out," the girl says, stopping at the side of the road, and Baekhyun squirms, trying to see what she's doing before he realizes she's flagging down a taxi. No.

"There's no way I'm getting in that taxi until you tell me what's going on," Baekhyun says stoutly, even though his heart is kind of racing by now and he's not sure what he can do if the girl stuffs him in the car anyway. But she only sighs, and looks down to meet his flashing gaze.

"I'm Chanyeol, and I need a model for my cousin, who's a painter." Baekhyun just stares at her. "Fine, okay. I'm trying to help my cousin out, because his muse, who also happened to be his girlfriend or well—yeah anyway—she died over a year ago and he hasn't finished a single painting since. Do we have to discuss this in public?" Baekhyun still wouldn't be convinced, it's an easy story, but there's a note of honesty in her eyes and, if nothing else, he's learned over the years how to tell if someone really is telling the truth.

"Fine," he mumbles into her chest, and lets himself be lowered onto the backseat as she walks around the car and climbs in the other side.

"Ambedo please," Chanyeol leans forward to tell the driver, who nods and keys it into his GPS. It's dark in the taxi, like a cocoon, swathed in warmth as the city lights speed by, firefly flickers of life in the vast expanse of night.

"But why me?" Baekhyun asks, finally, when he can't help it anymore. "Why me?"

Chanyeol looks at him, and there's something sad in her eyes. "You look exactly like her," she says. "Bai Xian."

Baekhyun blinks, and looks at the floor of the car, his feet lost in the shadows pooling around his ankles. _But I'm a boy,_ he thinks. He doesn't say anything.

 

Baekhyun isn't really expecting anything, but he's definitely not expecting the place they pull up to, the taxi rolling up between two brick pillars entwined with green ivy, and he gets an irrational burst of fear again, which Chanyeol must feel somehow because she turns and smiles, and even in the dimness it's comforting.

"Ambedo is a kind of interesting place," she explains, "you'll see." Baekhyun doesn't, not really, but he doesn't really have a choice. And the house does look nice when the taxi stops in the circular drive, huge windows overlooking the slate driveway, the house big, a mix of stone and sandy brick, trellises of roses that he can see even in the dark. Chanyeol pays the driver before climbing out of the car, and Baekhyun is just opening his door when it opens under his fingers and Chanyeol scoops him up into her arms again.

"I can walk, you know," he grumbles, even though it's strangely nice being carried.

"No you can't," Chanyeol retorts, and that's that.

The building looks old but Chanyeol hefts Baekhyun up a bit, reaching for a keypad fixed on the stone on the side of the door—Baekhyun can't see the numbers she keys in but the buttons she presses play a kind of discordant melody, and Baekhyun's fingers twitch against Chanyeol's arm.

_"Make sure you remember to practise your piano after school!"_

Chanyeol glances down at the fingers dancing over her arm but she doesn't say anything; Baekhyun just closes his eyes, and wonders how he ended up like this, as his ankle throbs and the door opens. The lobby is dark, but Chanyeol leans back against the wall; Baekhyun can hear a switch flip and suddenly the foyer is filled with a bluish glow from a chandelier above. Somehow it reminds him of the ocean, and he can't remember the last time he went.

_What am I doing with my life?_

"So what now?" he asks, and tries not to feel nervous at what he's gotten himself into. Chanyeol takes a right turn at a hallway, lights flickering on above them and an elevator swims into view. It's old, the kind with a cage instead of walls. It looks like a death trap.

"It's safe," Chanyeol laughs, when Baekhyun stiffens in her arms. The elevators clatters ominously, as the dial moves to two. There are three stops on the elevator, and Baekhyun wonders, idly, what's on the third floor.

Chanyeol's arms are starting to dig into his back a little as they move down the hallway, lights flickering on above them again. Chanyeol's heels click on the wood floor, _tap, tap, tap_ before they stop at a door. _23_.

"Where are we?" Baekhyun asks, and he winces at the way his voice cracks over the vowel. He might have trusted Chanyeol not to be lying, but he still doesn't know anything about her at all, and the way his heart is thumping beneath his ribs is starting to highlight the fact.

_I'm so tired._

Also the underwire of his bra must have slipped through the fabric, because it's digging into his chest and it really hurts.

Chanyeol he lifts him up again and keys in the numbers for the door. _Beep, beep, beep._

"Four eight six," she says, and Baekhyun doesn't know why but he saves the numbers in his head anyway. "Oh and the front door is ninety eleven zero six," Chanyeol continues, "but I'll text it to you later. What's your number?" The door swings open and a motion light over the door flicks on, as Chanyeol steps into the room, toeing off her shoes. Baekhyun looks around—it's an apartment, and it looks like it hasn't been lived in for a while, there's dust on the counter and the air smells a little stale, like dry dirt. He wrinkles his nose.

"I don't have one," he finally says, as Chanyeol sets him down on the sofa, frowning, a small cloud of dust flying up as she turns to flick on the light, heading for the refrigerator and grimacing at the thick rime of frost lining the freezer when she opens it. "What's going on?" Baekhyun's so tired, but everything is spinning around in his head and he just wants to know whether he can finally relax or if he needs to start running—if he should have been running a long time ago.

There's a crunching sound; Chanyeol is dumping a tray of ice cubes into the sink, gathering them up in a bag she pulls out of a drawer before coming back to Baekhyun on the sofa.

"Here," she says, "put this on your ankle." The ice is like an ocean on Baekhyun's burning skin, it almost hurts and he lets out a small moan. Chanyeol looks at him consideringly. "I'll be a minute okay? You need something to wear."

"But—" Baekhyun starts to protest, to try to insist upon answers but Chanyeol is too fast, already slipping out of the door. It's only after the door swings shut that Baekhyun realizes she's left her shoes behind.

 

When Chanyeol comes back with a towel and a change of clothes, the keypad beeping in the hallway before the door swings open again, the ice on Baekhyun's ankle is already helping a lot to soothe the hot feeling, but only bringing the soreness of his split lip, the rough burn of his back, his bruised elbow and the general stickiness of his face and skin into prominence.

_I want a bath._

But there's something alarming about the way Chanyeol is approaching him with a grin on her face, not alarming as in _I need to run_ —Baekhyun's had a few moments to think about things and he's realized that, even though he still doesn't quite understand what's going on, it's okay to be here, it's safe, or at least reasonably so—but rather, he's remembering what she said about being a stand in muse for her cousin, to replace his ex-girlfriend, and the fact that right now Baekhyun is dressed like a girl. _But I'm not a girl._

The light is stark against Chanyeol's face; she looks friendly and slightly curious, even, but like she's trying to hold her tongue. Baekhyun appreciates it, because he's too tired for questions, but she's holding a towel and a change of clothes and—

"Oh," Baekhyun says softly, and then winces as his lips untick and the cut on his lip seeps a little. Because there, on the towel, are two sets of sleepwear. A pair of pajama pants and a shirt, and what looks like a cotton night dress in tartan.

"Which would you prefer?" Chanyeol asks, and Baekhyun knows that she knows and she's not going to ask and it's okay.

"I'll have the pants if that's okay," he says, and that's that.

He's not expecting Chanyeol to pick him up, carry him to the bathroom and _give him a bath_ , but when he protests, she only looks at him as though to inquire, with her brown eyes, as to whether he really believes himself capable of managing to bathe himself and sponge the blood off the scratches on his back, as well as deal with the extreme soreness of his ankle, albeit dulled by the ice, and the mess of blood and dirt that is his hair.

And Baekhyun thinks he won't possibly fall asleep in a strange new bed in a strange new apartment so he promptly falls asleep at once.

 

He's woken up the next morning by the smell of coffee and biscuits, the soft beeping of the keypad before the door swings open.

"Good morning!" Chanyeol says, and she sounds ridiculously cheerful for someone to be so early in the morning; Baekhyun cracks open his eyes, groaning a little as he shifts in bed and the scratches on his back pull, his elbow protests and his ankle throbs, to check the time.

It's five minutes after noon.

"It's after noon," he groans, voice rough after yesterday, and Chanyeol just laughs instead of getting annoyed.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, and Baekhyun slowly sits up, wincing.

"I'm not dead in an alley somewhere," he says, and he knows he's feeling more himself today, more in control of himself by the way his jokes are far too extreme—but glancing up he can see that there's a shadow over Chanyeol's face and she looks. . .sad.

'Just," she starts, and her voice is a completely different tone from her earlier words; Baekhyun blinks and takes immediate notice, "Just don't say those kinds of things around my cousin." Chanyeol swallows, and Baekhyun glances down at his hands. His fingers are curled lightly over the paisley sheets.

"So no joking about being dead?" he says, trying to sound light-hearted and failing because his voice is still thick with sleep.

"Just no alleys," Chanyeol says, and leaves it at that.

There's a pair of pants and a shirt for him to put on, and Chanyeol raises a long narrow eyebrow at him and Baekhyun shakes his head.

"Pants are fine," he says, brushing the hair out of his eyes and wishing he had a hair tie. Chanyeol silently hands him one of hers. She's in jeans cut like sweat pants today, with thick elastic around the ankle, the pants are very baggy and should look sloppy but with the blue top she's wearing she looks extraordinarily relaxed and yet put together. Baekhyun wishes he knew how to dress like that, and then he wonders if he's going to have to crossdress for the modelling.

"Your cousin. . ." he starts, and doesn't quite know how to continue. _Do I need to be a girl for him?_ It's an awkward question.

"Yi Fan will be awake by now and after his first cup of coffee he'll only be moderately gloomy," Chanyeol says, laughing and, Baekhyun thinks, purposefully avoiding the question for no other reason than it amuses her. _Well if she thinks it's funny then it's probably okay._

Chanyeol clears up the late breakfast that's probably more of a lunch, while Baekhyun watches, ice on his ankle, feeling particularly useless. Glancing around the small flat, he wonders and finally asks.

"How long can I stay here?" He's trying to sound nonchalant but he really doesn't have anywhere to go. The twenty is in his pocket, now, but that's all he has.

"Oh that's okay," Chanyeol replies, waving her arms, tiny droplets of water splashing over the counter before she dries them on a dish towel. Baekhyun blinks, stray water misting his face.

"I don't understand," he says, because he really doesn't have any money at all.

Chanyeol just laughs and Baekhyun sticks out a tongue to hide how unsure he is about all of this.

"Ambedo is like that," Chanyeol says, shrugging. "The owners don't live there, but they kind of keep it as a hobby and people stay here because they want them to, by invitation. It's just like that." Baekhyun doesn't see how it can possibly be _just like that_ , but he doesn't want to look what seems to be a gift horse in the mouth too much either. And yet he thinks about hotel rooms and voices that make promises that turn out to be lies and he needs something more tangible than a shrug and a half-assed explanation. Chanyeol must be able to see the determination on his face, because she grins.

"I'll get a proper letter for you, okay?" she says, tucking the dish towel back on the rack and it seems to be the end of the conversation. It'll have to do for now.

 

Yi Fan lives on the third floor, which is less of a proper floor with doors and more of a space with walls and doors and things leaning against walls, draped with canvases and things. If Baekhyun had had any doubts about the veracity of the story about Chanyeol's cousin, at least the painter part, they are swiftly allayed by the generally careless and yet particular mess of this space.

Baekhyun is immensely curious about what Yi Fan actually paints, but Chanyeol is carrying him and he can't ask her to pause so he can snoop at the paintings underneath the canvases, but she sees him looking anyway and smirks.

"Curiosity killed the cat you know," she says, which has Baekhyun huffing because—

"I'll have you know that I'm a dog, thank you very much," he protests. Chanyeol laughs.

"You're a sulky lap dog," she says, shifting his not-very-considerable weight in her arms, "so I guess it's a good thing that Yi Fan likes dogs." Baekhyun sticks out his tongue and Chanyeol just shakes her head, knocking on the door in front of them with her foot. It's more like kicking, actually, just politely.

There's the sound of rustling, a bang as something falls over, a protest of pain and then the sound of a key turning in a lock and the door swings slowly open.

"I'm so glad you're up and awake, dear cousin Yi Fan," Chanyeol says, instead of hello. The man standing in the doorway, backlit by a huge floor to ceiling window that fills the wall across from the door, the glass smudged and dotted with paint, frowns.

"Stop it, Can Lie," he says, "I told you to call me Kris."

"That name is so pedestrian," Chanyeol says, elbowing Yi Fan— _or is it Kris?_ —aside and walking across the parquet floor to set Baekhyun on the sofa. "We'll have to get you some crutches," she says, and Baekhyun nods because it would be nice to be independent, even though it's nice to feel like someone cares about him, it's still strange and he wants to feel like he can at least try to run if he needs to. _Never forget an escape route,_ he remembers.

"It might be pedestrian but I picked it so it's whatever I want," Yi Fan, or Kris, says, and Chanyeol rolls her eyes.

"If you stop calling me Can Lie I'll stop calling you Yi Fan," she says, and Kris frowns again, under his hair. Baekhyun doesn't know what to think of him. He's tall, taller than Chanyeol, and he's not exactly scary, just a little. . .imposing. He's not sure what to say. "Anyway," Chanyeol continues, "here's your model. I'll be back to pick him up in two hours, and don't worry, I'll pay him because I know you're not interested." Baekhyun's head snaps up at this— _not interested? What?_ but Chanyeol is already slipping out the door.

"But what makes you think he would work?" Kris calls out the door, his voice almost petulant. Baekhyun notices the paint stains on his fingers.

"Just look at him," Chanyeol says, and then the door swings shut.

There's a moment of silence, while Baekhyun and Kris stare at each other, dust motes dancing in the air between them, falling like seconds. Baekhyun feels like he's being cross-examined, but no one has even said anything. And then, suddenly, Kris is walking forward, hand resting gently on Baekhyun's chin as he lifts it slightly and stares into Baekhyun's eyes, Baekhyun is staring back defiantly because he's not going to be nervous, he's _not_ —and then Kris nods and retreats to a stool perched beside a blank canvas, or rather, blank except for a spattering of blue across the white surface.

"So that's why," Kris says softly, but Baekhyun can still hear him and it's a strange feeling, like he, _Baekhyun_ , doesn't really exist, like he's just a ghost of someone else. He doesn't like it.

"My name is Baekhyun," he says, and Kris looks back at him. There's surprise in his eyes now, where there wasn't before, and Baekhyun wants to know what it is. "What?" he asks.

"You sound like her too," Kris says, and Baekhyun feels, whether justified or not, like he'd like to poke Kris in the forehead and make him look at him, _Baekhyun_ , not Bai Xian. But his ankle still throbs and he can't stand up so he settles for lobbing a crumpled up piece of paper from the sofa at Kris instead.

"What was that for?" Kris asks, blinking, and Baekhyun sticks out his tongue.

"I'm not Bai Xian," he says, and Kris opens and then closes his mouth. "And I'm not a girl either."

"Fine then," Kris says, and picks up his paintbrush, peering at the palette on the raises tray by the canvas. "Then take off your clothes."

"What?" Baekhyun doesn't even bother to keep the surprise out of his voice. "She didn't say anything about that."

"You're a model," Kris says, "I'm a painter and Can Lie, for whatever reason, keeps trying to get me to paint because supposedly I'm depressed and artistically blocked and wallowing in my own grief." There's a strange flicker in his eyes when he says _Can Lie_ , and Baekhyun wonders briefly what that's about, but Kris keeps talking. "And so now I have you and I might as well paint you or at least try, so I don't get into trouble." He gestures at Baekhyun. "You can just do the shirt today, if you'd rather start small."

It feels like a dare, even if it isn't, and Baekhyun is out of his shirt and pants and underwear before he has time to think better of it. It's not like he hasn't at least started this before, sometimes, though it was always with a bra on and it's strange how it feels so different. 

"You really are a boy," Kris says, and Baekhyun flips him the finger and then winces as the scratches on his back come in contact with the sofa. He doesn't think he was very obvious, but Kris notices anyway.

"What happened to you?" he asks, and Baekhyun remembers what Chanyeol said about alleys.

"Nothing," he says, and Kris frowns but doesn't prod.

"So how do you want me?" Baekhyun asks, after a few moments of Kris glancing at him and then the canvas, there's a pencil in his hand now and he can hear the faintest scratching of pencil on paper.

"What?" Kris asks, not really paying attention.

"How do you want me to sit?" It feels strange, being naked and yet the other person in the room isn't leering at him at all.

"Whatever you like," Kris mumbles; he's not really paying attention to Baekhyun's words at all and Baekhyun just sighs, sitting with his ankles crossed, legs loosely stretched out sideways, leaning on one elbow as he plays half forgotten sonatas on the rough surface of the sofa. The sun is warm on his skin and he doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until there are soft voices drifting in and out of his consciousness like dreams.

"He fell alseep."

"He's so cute!"

"He's noisy."

"You know you like it."

"He's noisy like a vuvuzela; maybe that's what I'll call him. And I haven't painted boys since school."

"I don't care what you paint, as long as you're painting because you need to."

"Why are you so meddling?"

"I meddle because I care about you, someone has to and I'm the one who's here."

"It's like you pick up pets; by the way, are you really doing the girl thing?"

"What girl thing?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

"I don't. I just do whatever and you know that."

"You're not thinking but whatever, do what you want."

"I always do anyway."

Baekhyun stirs, slightly, there's something covering him and when he pries his eyes groggily open he can see that it's a sheet. Chanyeol is leaning over him, scooping him up in her arms and the press of the pressure against his back stings a little but Baekhyun is still so sleepy, he just winces, resting his head against her shoulder.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Yi Fan," Chanyeol says, and there's a soft weight on Baekhyun's stomach, his neatly folded clothes he sees when he cracks open his eyes, and Kris steps back as the door swings shut between them.

"Sweet dreams, Baekhyun."

Curled in Chanyeol's arms, Baekhyun can feel the chuckle in her chest as she walks down the hallway.

"I have a question," Baekhyun murmurs sleepily into Chanyeol's chest as the elevator clicks and clacks, descending.

"Yes?" Chanyeol hums.

"Was Bai Xian a dog too?" Chanyeol laughs again, and Baekhyun doesn't understand why but is too sleepy to pursue the issue.

"Bai Xian was more of a cat," Chanyeol replies and Baekhyun drifts back to sleep, his subconscious satisfied.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired in part by 鳥籠荘の今日も眠たい住人たち (The Sleepy Residents of Birdcage Manor).
> 
> The title is from [Scheherazade](http://youngerpoets.yupnet.org/2008/04/22/scheherazade-crush-by-richard-siken/) and the first chapter title is from [A Primer for the Small Weird Loves](http://tikayiyay.tumblr.com/post/67133314/a-primer-for-the-small-weird-loves-by-richard), both by Richard Siken.


End file.
